Matt’s Somewhat Serious Bit
The Australian game development industry has always been somewhat interesting. We have a range of developers; powerhouses like Krome, as well as workhorses such as Tantalus Interactive and Torus Games, not to mention a horde of lesser known studios and extensions of international developers. The development scene itself has been growing steadily for many years, and now has an industry body in the form of the Game Developers Association of Australia, founded in 1999.
Tom Crago (left) and his cronies want greater recognition for the Australian games development industry
Historically the popularity of video games in Australia has always been pretty high, and that has lead to a lot of young gamers wishing to pursue a career in development. When you’re young, you tend to have delusions of grandeur; that the game you want to develop will be the next Grand Theft Auto or Halo – there’s two ways to do this; get onto one of those development teams, or start your own company and begin work on your dream game. Many opt for the second option, and as such we have a growing number of local development studios wanting to make their dream games. There’s just one big problem: funding.
Our Australian developers want to compete on the world stage, putting out those triple A titles that everyone raves about, but they lack the funds to do it. Now it’d be all well and good for me to sit here and rant about how Australian developers should quit whinging about getting hand outs and a free lunch, and develop smaller games to build their capital base before they take on the big projects – while I think that is the way that things should be done, I don’t think it is the solution. With the rise of cheaper labour from developing nations such as India and China, Australia needs to position itself in a way to prevent it from being left behind.
On Wednesday, Tantalus Interactive chief and GDAA President Tom Crago mentioned in an interview that he feels the Australian industry is being left behind, and has called upon the Federal Government to extend tax breaks and incentives received by the film and visual effects industries to the game development industry. When I first read this proposal, I thought it was absurd, given the relatively high level of investment that is required for a film to get these tax breaks ($5 Million), not to mention the fact that the Australian film industry is mature and somewhat more recognised locally than the games industry.
Krome were wise to maintain control of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger and associated IP
The measures in place aren’t exactly feasible to be directly ported over to the games industry. Instead, I feel that the industry bodies in Australia, the GDAA and the IEAA need to pressure the Government into establishing a set of incentives that are more suited towards the games industry and fit into the development culture of Australia. On top of the existing tax offset (which could be adjusted to a threshold that is more suited to a game development budget), the Government should extend grants to developers, not unlike the grants extended to the film industry and artists across the country. Fostering overseas investment in our industry is all well and good, but I would like to see a bit more local support for the industry – outside of the local sports games, how often do people identify that a particular game was made in Australia? The State Governments, particularly Queensland and the ACT have been very supportive of game development institutions, so it’d be nice to see the top level of government take more of an interest in a growth industry such as this.
The other major issue Mr Crago has raised is the importance of building new IP to give our industry the advantage of differentiation (although historically, successful Australian developed IP has often ended up in the hands of overseas publishers). Developing new IP, especially with the increased cost of development for full retail games, is a particularly risky venture. PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade and the upcoming WiiWare present the perfect opportunity for Australian developers to test the waters with new IP before launching into bigger and badder products. By jumping on board these new markets, and teaming up with local media to promote such products, I think that many of Australia’s budding development companies could really make a go of any new opportunities extended to them.
You Know What Really Grinds My Gears
Speaking of bad adaptations, the continual poor treatment of superheroes in video games really gets me fired up. It’s not exactly a new trend or anything – 90% of superhero video games are utter crap – you’d think that super powers and video games would go hand in hand, but few developers seem to be able to pull it off. What really grinds my gears is the fact that so many of the games that are tied in with the release of superhero films are utter crap, despite the fact that the films are often announced 2-3 years in advance, which is more than enough time to develop a competent piece.
Activision had all of the time in the world to make a decent Spider-Man 3 game
One could make excuses in the case of a game adaptation such as Enter the Matrix, where the rights for the game were only settled months before the movie was due, but Superman Returns and Spider-Man 3? These games had their rights settled 3 years before release. Given that the movies would obviously be smash hits, and the games would be guaranteed enough sales (at least in the case of Spider-Man) to get their budget back, wouldn’t the developer put their all in to make sure the game was a) fun and b) bug-free? Obviously not.
Cross Media Mania
The early 90’s are a period of outright debauchery that we may never recover from. Music acts such as New Kids on the Block, MC Hammer, and Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch, TV shows such as Blossom and Full House, and the first of the video game movies. Double Dragon, being a groundbreaking and extremely popular arcade game was, according to Hollywood producers at least, begging for a big screen adaptation. The result was a piece of cinematic shame.
My video store has this, and not Citizen Kane
The Double Dragon film deviates substantially from the original video game. Rather than twin brothers on a mission to rescue Billy’s girlfriend, the film involves a bunch of hokey stereotypical Asian mysticism, magical amulets, post apocalyptic Los Angeles (now New Angeles), and other non-sensical crap. The brothers Lee, portrayed by Scott Wolf (of Party of Five fame) and Mark Dascacos (who played Eric Draven in The Crow TV series) are no longer twins, Marian is no longer a damsel in distress, but a gang leader, and game boss Abobo looks like he was squeezed out by a wino after a night on the booze. Robert Patrick (the T-1000) plays the rather silly looking antagonist, who wishes to get the fancy amulet to grant himself ultimate power. Despite clocking in at 89 minutes, Double Dragon is not exciting for a single moment.
An anthropomorphic after grog bog?
The film did not perform very well at all, shunned by critics and audiences alike, and grossing a mere $US2.3 million at the US domestic box office. According to the film’s Wikipedia page, Knight Rider star and singing sensation (in Germany, at least) David Hasselhoff was originally set to star as the Lee brothers’ father, which would have probably made the film about eleventy billion times better. Despite the obvious shiteness of the film, it is apparently popular in South America. Kinda like the Sega Master System, I guess.
Blast from the Past
In 1989, Capcom released Strider, which proved to be a smash hit in the arcade, thanks in large to its unique approach to platforming action. Licensor US Gold produced an abortion of a sequel entitled Strider II in 1992, which was bad enough to make even the greatest Strider fan cry himself to sleep. After the inclusion of Strider Hiryu in Marvel vs Capcom, and his popularity with players in that particular game, Capcom commissioned for a new Strider game to be made, simply entitled Strider 2.
Long red scarves are popular fashion accessories for ninjas
Released ten years after the original, Strider 2 uses a mixture of 2D sprites and 3D backgrounds, and retains similar gameplay to its predecessor. Hiryu is capable of much faster movement and more impressive acrobatics, making him seem far more ninja-like. The game offers four different missions to select initially, with a fifth mission available when they’re all complete. Each mission has several smaller stages and boss fights, which are all quite impressive. New abilities can be added to Hiryu’s arsenal throughout the game.
Pray that John Denver isn't piloting
Due to the game appearing on the ZN-2 arcade board, Strider 2 was ported to the PlayStation in 1999. It came on two discs, one for the main game and a second which featured a port of the arcade version of the original Strider. While the game was generally well received across the board, it did not sell very well – less than 100,000 copies worldwide. As such, it’s not an easy game to find, particularly in good condition, but one would not expect to have to part with too much cash to acquire this rather fun, albeit brief game.
The views and opinions expressed in Easy Mode remain those of the author and do not reflect the views of PALGN, its affiliates, sponsors advertisers and other interested parties. Do not attempt to sue the author as he is just a man. What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!
Whilst the movie stank, Mark Dacascos is still a legend. Watch the direct to DVD movie 'Drive' and you'll forgive him.
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